The semitransparent glass I am thinking of is such that if a person presses the front of his face on one side, the color and shape of the face can be seen from the other side but not the facial features.

Is this an opaque window? A semitransparent window? Or is there a better word?

@Jim Thanks Jim. Googling privacy glass, however, suggests that the term is associated with a kind of switchable glass that can alter its own transparency.
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SELJul 17 '12 at 7:11

@Sel- While there are companies out there that make new "switchable" privacy glass, the plain-old regular vision-obscuring glass is still called privacy glass. See here, for example
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JimJul 17 '12 at 7:16

Translucent means semi-transparent; however, you will not find "translucent glass" in the hardware store. As noted elsewhere, the marketing term is frosted glass or privacy glass. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frosted_glass
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chosterJul 17 '12 at 13:04

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Yet I've never heard of a "frosted window" (except during the winter). A translucent window of frosted glass, yes?
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QuasiperfectJul 17 '12 at 13:53

Would you call this a jargon or a layman's term?
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SELJul 17 '12 at 7:09

8

@Sel: That depends. If I were a physicist doing optics research, then frosted would be jargon, and translucent would be the more approriate term. However, if I worked as for a company that insalled bathroom fixures, then frosted glass would be the official term, not jargon or slang. At least one dictionary says in its definition of frosted: (of a window) having a translucent textured surface so that it is difficult to see through.
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J.R.Jul 17 '12 at 8:57

There are a number of types of semi-transparent glass that can produce the effect you're talking about. As far as I know, windows made from these types of glass have no specific name -- they would be identified by the type of glass an purpose, e.g. a frosted glass skylight, or figured glass bathroom window, or glass block foyer wall.

Frosted glass windows are made from glass that has been textured via sandblasting, acid etching, or some similar process that changes one (or both) suraces so that they scatter light. The grain on the frosting determines how big the effect is -- frosted glass light bulbs have a very fine grain and have a fairly uniform whitish color (used for "soft" light bulbs). Coarser grains become more translucent, but produce a "blockier" image from the other side.

Figured glass is glass that has some sort of pattern (a "figure") stamped onto the glass while the plates are being rolled out. This is where you get things like shower doors that have blurry or bumpy patterns on them, where you can see the objects on the other side but very distorted. (This sounds the most like what you describe in your question.)

Finally, there is glass block (also called glass brick) which are small bricks of solid glass, which are often cast with a pattern, hollow portion, or distorted surface similar to figured glass. They serve a similar purpose but are used to construct entire architectural elements, such as walls, where both privacy and ambient light are desired.

I don't think murky is the appropriate word to describe the glass in question.
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Dilip SarwateJul 17 '12 at 22:21

Murky does have the connotation of being old or dirty, but it could still fit within the context of the question. The original question didn't indicate the tone that they wished to convey when describing why they couldn't see through the glass.
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ZootJul 18 '12 at 18:38